Surgery Cases: The governor has lifted all restrictions on surgeries. All types of cases will now be accepted at all surgical sites within the network
Testing: Beginning Tuesday, May 26 for patients scheduled on Thursday, May 28 and beyond, we will begin testing for COVID-19 for any elective surgical patients receiving general anesthesia. The test requires that the patient be swabbed by 3 pm two days prior to the date of surgery in order to allow the results to be received in a timely manner. Patients will be asked to self-isolate once the test is conducted until the day of surgery. Patients who are scheduled less than two days prior to surgery or who do not complete the test in a timely manner will not have the screening completed prior to surgery. At this time, we will also not be conducting any day of surgery testing unless the patient is a PUI.
The process will be as follows:
- Patient scheduled for surgery
- PAT
staff will contact the patent for their phone assessment; if the patient is an
elective case scheduled to receive general anesthesia they will:
- Advise the patient to get swabbed by 3 p.m. 2 days prior to surgery at any network freestanding emergency department, hospital emergency department, Pre-admission Testing clinic, or a site of their choice.
- Advise the patient that they must self-isolate until day of surgery
- Patient
completes the test
- If the patient decides not to be tested at a network facility, they may bring proof of testing within the past two days with them to the hospital.
- The lab will notify the Network Operations Command Center of any positive tests and the Network Operations Command Center will MatchMD the surgeon
- The surgeon will be responsible to notify the patient and make a determination of whether to postpone or proceed with the procedure.
- The Network Operations Command Center will also notify Pre-admission Testing that the patient was positive and the outcome of their ability to reach the surgeon.
- The Pre-admission Testing nurse will contact the physician’s office to confirm that they are aware of the test outcome and confirm the determination to postpone the case. If postponed Pre-admission Testing will let the surgery department know.
- Pre-admission Testing nurse will review all patient charts for confirmation that the test was done and resulted. If the patient is negative, no further action will be taken.